DUCTAC Dubai - UAE [email protected] www.ductac.org 002 003 MinD Dubai Contemporary Contents

010 Foreword Colette Mol / Joseph Fowler

014 Dubai Contemporary Mohammed Kazem

019 Visual Polyphony Cristiana de Marchi

035 Abdul Rahman Al Ma’aini 047 Corrina Celeste Mehiel 059 Cristiana de Marchi 071 Hassan Sharif 081 Jessica Mein 091 Joe Girandola 101 Layla Juma 117 Lujin Yoon 131 Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim 143 Nelly Massera Foreword

DUCTAC’s Gallery of Light collaborates with both local and international artists and curators to exhibit arts practice that is evolving and experimental.

Now in its third year, the Gallery’s alternative art platform “MinD” (Made in Dubai) aims to function as a barometer, reflecting the state and mood of art in the UAE. The initiative serves to advance the cultural dialogue in the UAE, to provoke public interest, input and debate around new artistic developments, encouraging fresh thinking and new ways of viewing and appreciating contemporary art. “MinD” is part of our ongoing initiative to provide a platform for UAE-based artists, in order to build a dynamic and vital foundation for visual arts in the Emirates.

On behalf of the team at DUCTAC we would like to express our sincere gratitude to Mohammed Kazem, a leading figure in the development of contemporary art in the UAE, for his vision, discernment and dedication in curating this exhibition. We would also like to offer special thanks to the co-editor of this catalogue Cristiana de Marchi, for her insightful observations and words, and to Corrina Mehiel and Lujin Yoon for their contributions to both the catalogue and to the exhibition as a whole.

Colette Mol / Joseph Fowler

009 011 052 Dubai Contemporary

The concept of “Dubai Contemporary” is conjured mainly from the simple philosophical notion of putting together different visual perspectives of artists from various cultural backgrounds, who meet together and register their observations and impressions of the city of Dubai; a city that combines a deep rooted history of Arabic and Islamic tradition with modernity and futuristic prospects.

The exhibition offers a great opportunity for art lovers to come in contact with a new dimension for approaching the environment. The exhibition is made up of works by three distinct groups of artists. Firstly a group of Emirati artists expose their reactions towards the rich and multi-layered environment of their country. Secondly, the exhibition presents the work of some artists from abroad who have close ties with Dubai, some of them having resided in the Emirate for many years now. These works reveal the artists’ relationship with the place and the affection they have towards it. A third group includes the works of three artists from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, USA, who will express their impressions about a place they are visiting for the first time. Together, these three collections will represent the many faces of contemporary Dubai.

All the artists will be invited to reside in Dubai for almost a month, where they will have the chance to roam its streets and landmarks and will have an up close and personal view of its features and ways of life, before registering their impressions in their respective artistic methods and tendencies. This mixture of techniques and visions is what gives the exhibition its richness and vigour.

Contemporary artistic movements consider ‘place’ to be a vital pillar in the creative process, especially when the place in question embraces sublime humanistic dimensions, and the spirit of the past is interwoven with the amazement of innovation and modernity. The artist tries to touch upon the social changes that occurred within these places, and to observe the effect the circumstances of people have on aesthetics and physical expression. Cities like Dubai impose an ever changeable question inspired by the fast rhythm of living and the convergence of sensual points of view in an interactive environment of multiple roots and identities. This exhibition tends to serve as a microcosm for this idea.

At one level, “Dubai Contemporary” represents a direct call to love, friendship and belonging to human beauty, regardless of differences that may occur amongst people. Subsequently, the questions we ask ourselves regarding living in the present cannot find any concrete answer except in the arts that carry a sublime humanistic message, and try to deliver this message in a language understood and revered by all human beings.

Mohammed Kazem

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Visual Polyphony

American filmography has familiarized international audiences with the concept of Let us admit it, Dubai occupies yet a different position. The connection, the polyphony, popularizing an idea originally associated with a musical compositional exchange, the communication between artists is still insufficient; local artists, style developed in Europe in the Middle Ages, but perfected in, and often especially the youngest generations (and this deserves a special appreciation, in identified with, baroque music. Combining two or more independent voices ruled its positive connotation), are nurtured and even encouraged to achieve steps in by harmonic principles, the style of music is nowadays relegated to a niche public, their career that would be out of reach for most young artists elsewhere. Critique as it is elegantly defined - a cornered phenomenon. Significantly differing from is always gentle and indulgent, without considering that the next step will be an symphony, where sounds agree and concord, polyphony, which literally means international audience and a specialized public. Foreign artists residing in UAE “made of many voices”, in fact combines, relates and creates a dialogue between live in a kind of aristocratic exile, being offered very few opportunities to show their several voices simultaneously evolving during the composition, yet maintaining works, looking at outside showcases for their production as well as UAE based their individuality and difference. galleries that privilege foreign artists tout court and build a specialized market around those names. True as it is, although it sounds sinisterly didactic to the core, in order to recognize a voice in a plurality of voices, each and every one of them must be characterized, must preserve their own specificity.

It is obviously a common practice to organize shows gathering the work of different art practitioners, or gathering several artists around a common subject, according to the point of view and perspective of the curators. It is indeed the prevailing way to do the job, group exhibitions being instrumental to present a variety of positions, to explore a subject from different angles, sometimes to build a pretextual castle without foundations. Nevertheless, and on the other side, group shows are undeniably a precious tool for artists who gradually enter the art circuit before being offered the opportunity of their first aspired solo (with illustrious exceptions of course, and unquestionably).

“Dubai Contemporary”, this year’s title of the “MinD” (Made in Dubai) series hosted by the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre (DUCTAC), is a long term project elaborated by curator and artist Mohammed Kazem exploring the nature of artistic creation in Dubai, although it could be easily extended to the entire UAE. Involving a variety of artists, local, expatriate and foreign, at this stage of its development the project aims at focusing on the plurality of voices, equally dignifying the native and the foreign ones, by acknowledging the undeniably relevant diversification of contributions recordable in the field. The audience has become acquainted to the distinguo that still emphasizes the provenience of the practitioners, often prioritizing single groups over the others according to not so different agendas, although resulting in quite diversified outputs.

“Dubai Contemporary” is intended to overtake this querelle and to face the plurality and multi-layered reality that constitutes the fluctuating consistency of Dubai, a city that would be the natural set for a choral film, for its very nature of being a connecting point between cultures. Yet not a bridge, a port perhaps, more a transient space than one which encourages exchange and reciprocates understanding.

Indeed Dubai is not a provincial reality, where artists are mostly or exclusively local and well known by their audience; an attached and loving audience providing them with a friendly and caressing feedback. Neither is it a cultural megalopolis where the exploration, the commingling, the connection, the combination and the mixture of different stimuli and motivations will create new outcomes, and be the subject for a prepared, qualified and, in the best possible scenario, unbiased criticism.

020 The Voices We said ‘voices’ and meant them to be individual, recognizable yet characterized The Themes by a certain “belonging”, suddenly evoking the national/communitarian issue In a polyphonic musical composition each voice or instrument has a special that still remains a top issue in qualifying human beings. Neither human beings theme, a given theme. Similarly, each and every artist in this show is recognizable in general nor artists can escape that rule, too often called to take part in events for his/her specific voice, which is the result of their artistic exercise and research featuring a national colour as if it were a dress. and is continuously subject to change. This exhibition has the merit to reunite artists with three different statuses in relation Hassan Sharif does not need any introduction in the UAE, his long practice to the UAE and specifically to Dubai. A status which might change and in fact in several media with a main focus on paintings, semi-systemic works and on changes all the time - as far as an artist is invited to participate in shows organized the production of objects being quite familiar to a passionate audience of art and held abroad, or by accident or intention happens to move elsewhere and enthusiasts. His ironic perspective on the surrounding reality is the common trait relocate - thus proving, if ever necessary, the fragile consistency of belonging and denominator through his different expressions and creations. Consumerism is as physical data (that is unfortunately the concept mostly applied until now by one of the aspects that Hassan Sharif has targeted throughout his artistic career, curators, gallery owners and art dealers when they intend to identify and categorize together with the mass culture that we tend to be imbued in most of the time, often artists by their origins). to be absorbed and annihilated by. Indeed his level of attention is extraordinarily high, never compassionate nor derisive, rather depicting, portraying and restituting The first group is composed of local artists, living and working in the UAE who are the image of this fast growing and changing society. mostly well known internationally and who have occasional experiences abroad. Four artists (Hassan Sharif, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Layla Juma, and Abdul- The juxtaposition with Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim could not be more strikingly Rahman Al Ma’aini) fall into this group, from three generations, with different evident. Mohammed Ahmed lives in the Khorfakan region, and this secluded, arid backgrounds and yet with a deep mutual knowledge, as evidenced by a variety land has often been the dialectic element in his practice, if not his alter ego. His of expressions that most western art enthusiasts and professionals tend to deny Land Art experiments date back to the early ‘90s: wrapped trees, stones caught or actually ignore. by a metallic net, stone circles… the intervention on nature is ancestral, as are his paintings and his plastic creations mainly consisting of objects made of or covered The second group (Jessica Mein and Cristiana de Marchi) consists of foreign by a mixture of papier machè and seeds or earth samples collected from nature. artists settled in the UAE where they have been consistently working for the past few years. It is not really surprising, considering the models and patterns offered The precision of the drawing, the calculation of every single unit in order to reach by statistics and social studies, that this group is actually the most compact, the harmony of the composition, along with its reduction to essentiality are few including two female artists from the same generation, mainly differentiated by of the characters that make Layla Juma’s artworks recognisable. She constantly their provenience and practice. Dubai is not London, New York or Paris. Artists seems to seek a balance between the elements that she decides to oppose are not (yet) attracted here because of the prestige of local art faculties and and then to integrate in ways that will simply make any trace of previous efforts academies; a proper artistic network has not yet been formed. Artists moving to disappear. the UAE, with few exceptions, do so because they are following some other force, pulled by someone or something else. In this group one will rarely find very young The search for an equilibrium is also recognisable in Abdul-Rahman Al Ma’aini’s art practitioners, and one will certainly not find established artists in their “mature” paintings where colours appear to be the main players and yet they are a medium, age. where the intersection of lines connects all points in the canvas as if he were pulling the ropes of a kite in order to direct it to the place where it is meant to go. The third group (Joe Girandola, Nelly Massera, Corrina Mehiel and Lujin Yoon) Control is the key of his practice. consists of artists who have developed a fortuitous connection with Dubai, who have never lived here and have been invited to participate in this show . ad hoc The many talents of Jessica Mein are hardly reducible to one: the meticulousness Once again this is a heterogeneous group, with two young artists whose work of her process and the refinement of her realizations reflect deepening levels of exhibited in the show is the result of their Dubai artist in residence experience. observation. The multiplication of her intervention through paper manipulations Meanwhile the other two artists are either producing a work which relates to the local mirrors the concentration of the recomposition; the delicacy of the traits undeniably culture (or to the image of local culture as it is transmitted and received in western alludes to a poetic inclination. countries) or highlighting a tangency between Dubai and the Indian subcontinent: a tangency absolutely legitimate and indeed able to trace trajectories within and beyond the curatorial concept.

021 022 A parallel kind of dedication, of relentless repetition, is detectable in Cristiana de Marchi’s practice, her embroideries reaching the extension of a system world, covering all the coverable, and even the un-coverable. There is a sort of obstinacy, a tenacity present in her work, combined with a high grade of insight and penetration, often subtly provocative and inviting the audience to interrogate or question themselves, looking for a synthesis between elements borrowed from the so-called “high culture” and the triviality of the materials adopted, either chosen or occasioning her works.

Nelly Massera’s videos show a deep involvement in the realities that she explores, creating a tangency, collecting memories, words, images that she recomposes into moving collages. Her degree of commitment to life is as solid as her engagement in restituting it at a deeper level, at the layer of its hidden consistency.

A similar level of adhesion to life is present in Joe Girandola’s experience, and not only his artistic one. His prevailing use of duct tape, (a material devoid of importance yet largely reflective of a whole culture), after having been trained as a stone sculptor, the noblest of all disciplines, reflects a certain “liminality” (intended in its best acceptation of openness), a lateral approach that eventually leads to the boundaries of self resourcefulness, and an ability to stand in front of history, in its determinism and heaviness, and to re-enact it with lightness and irony.

The world of Corrina Mehiel looks like it is enchanted, covered by a veil or suspended. As in fables, one needs to breach the boundary to make a discovery: this breach is about disclosure and surprise, the very source of starting points and first steps.

Lujin Yoon’s work demonstrates a great deal of confidence that is significantly reflected by his precarious constructions, precarious because of the material from which they are created, but also because of the dynamic balance that can engage a fall at any time, thus visualizing the opposition of stability and potentiality that is at the very core of his actual research.

The Common Melody Common melodies are what we listen to when we attend classical concerts, and single voices rarely impose on one another unless the sheet music calls for the presence of a soloist or creates a counterpoint.

In contemporary art, soloists are the rule rather than the exception. Each and every voice speaks a different language, yet they harmonize by tracing lines that connect and relate single works of art. We can almost certainly say without mistake that there is a higher level of improvisation, a wider margin for dissonance and a deeper openness to recomposition than one would find in a common melody.

Ultimately an exhibition is not a symphony, rather it resembles a polyphony.

Cristiana de Marchi

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Abdul-Rahman Al Ma’aini

“During an animated evening, Abdul Rahman Al Ma’aini follows a thought, an intuition. Isolated from the context, he traces the preambles for one of his works; he keeps going instinctively, without any precision instruments, simply freehand drawing”. This narration from curator Jos Clevers unveils some basic principles of Abdul Rahman Al Ma’aini’s work: a vibrant inspiration, the perfect mastery of art techniques, and a capacity for abstraction that strongly affects his most recent production.

Abdul Rahman initially investigates the portrait’s potential elements, manipulating them in a research of multiple contemporary representations that have famous predecessors.

The passage to abstraction comes gradually and can be observed in a series of compositions where geometrical details are inserted in the main drawing. And, as if those details had been analysed through a magnifying glass, they amplify themselves, they diversify themselves, and they follow an orderly development.

His most recent works are entirely abstract, technically realised freehand drawing, with a surprising degree of perfection. Even though the traits are apparently repeated, each work has its absolute individuality. The geometry which constitutes the basis of the composition is broken, shattered by illusionary wavy lines, which resemble acoustic emanations whose propagation echoes in the air. Finally the colour, another essential component of Abdul Rahman Al Ma’aini’s work, the brilliant explosion of chromatism, is a further testimony of the absolute purity of the artist’s sight, in tight connection with folk elements and the rituals of his land of origin.

Abdul-Rahman Al Ma’aini (1975) lives and works in Sharjah, UAE. A member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society and of the Dubai Youth Theater & Art Atelier since 2005, he has participated in several group shows (Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, UAE; Luzern, Switzerland; Saragossa, Spain; Assilah, Morocco). His work features in collections including the Barjeel Foundation and several private collections.

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Untitled, , 2012, detail, Untitled, , 2009, acrylic on canvas, , 120 x 100 cm 041 © The Flying House Untitled, , 2007, acrylic on canvas, , 220 x 121 cm 043 © The Flying House Untitled, , 2010, acrylic on canvas, , 140 x 220 cm © The Flying House Corrina Celeste Mehiel

“The first time I saw a red carrot was in a market in New Delhi. Until then I did not know carrots could be anything but orange. This was an important discovery and spurred an investigation into familiarity, place, our relationship with objects and identity. How do familiar places, people and objects offer us a sense of belonging?

India has become my favorite setting for research for years. Spending time there I feel as if I am living within a memory. The people I’ve met seem familiar to me yet different.

Through my travels I have seen variations in the perception of typical. The normal day to day interaction of people with the things surrounding them creates a sort of insignificant ritual. I am fascinated and curious to understand why we identify with certain objects, how they trigger nostalgia and give us a sense of identity. The vegetables in India were my trigger for feeling at home. In a foreign country where I had no language and no sense of normal, the vegetables and the people I shared meals with filled me with comfort and a feeling of acceptance.

I make drawings and objects based on memory and nostalgia.”

Corrina Celeste Mehiel (Seattle, WA, 1982) currently lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, USA where she is enrolled in the MFA Program in studio practice at the University of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in Philadelphia, PA; Pune, India (2011); Harrisburg, PA (2010) and Seattle WA (2007).

047 Beach Barriers, , 2012, digital collage, , dimensions variable, Dubai, , 2012, transfer on paper, , six drawings from the series Dubai , 20 x 20 cm each Philadelphia Scenes, , 2011, ink on paper, sticker book, , dimensions variable, Philadelphia Street Objects, , 2011, ink on paper, sticker book, , dimensions variable, Found Rubber Bands, , 2012, mixed media, dimensions variable, 058 Cristiana de Marchi

Cristiana de Marchi’s work is minimalist in its essence. During the past few years she has been intensively working on embroideries using a variety of easily accessible objects and materials which we deal with on a daily basis, including kitchen utensils, light home furnishings and aliments.

This long term and ongoing project originated from her interest in words and their translation and in the correspondence between physical and nominal dimensions, between actions and wording.

Her other recent projects focus on the controversial territory of language and messages of propaganda, in this case supported by a clear manipulative purpose; and on the theme of identity, treated by the artist from an ironic, acute and yet witty perspective.

Performances and videos constitute the other direction of de Marchi’s research, investigating the line between phrasing and acting, between the aura recognized in the former and the obviousness and self-evidence of the latter.

Whereas the use of words is regulated by the contradictory and conventional reference to a set system of cultural (in the wider sense) rules, the use of the body eludes these rules, placing the communication on a hyper-real level and involving a fluid combination of both verbal and non-verbal languages.

Cristiana was born in Turin, Italy (1968) and currently lives and works between Dubai and Beirut. An artist, curator and writer, she holds a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours from the Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy. She conducts personal artistic and literary research as well as publishing articles and essays in catalogues and magazines devoted to contemporary art. A former associate member of the collective “Sezione”, Turin, she is a founder member of Artfield, Turin and collaborates with The Flying House in Dubai. Her works have recently been shown in group exhibitions in Sharjah and Dubai, UAE; Morelia, Mexico; Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Barcelona, Spain; Milano, Italy; Sofia, Bulgaria. 062 Crescent, , 2010, embroidery on kitchen tools, , 37 x 6.5 x 1.5 cm each Doing & Undoing. The Nation, , 2011, video still, Al Watan. The Nation, , 2010, embroidery, , 19 x 62.5 cm (Right) detail Mapping Gaps, , 2006-2009, embroidery, , dimensions variable, 069 Hassan Sharif

“Since 1982 I felt there was a gap between conventional painting and conventional sculpture and I was intent on finding an alternative “work of art”. I also realized that my sarcastic outlook on life was a result of my engagement in caricatures that critique the social and political condition which were published in newspapers and magazines between 1970 and 1979.

I resorted to the idea of ‘redundant repetition’ in producing art. I would continuously engage myself in boring, recurring and endless activities, a feature that would become a signature and the underlying purpose of my artwork since 1982.

Despite the fact that my works are based on a sequential, industrial mode of creativity, they also demolish the sequential autonomy of an industrial product. I inject my works with a realism that exposes this socio-political economic monster, allowing people a chance to recognize the danger of over indulgence in this form of negative consumption.

Creating these works requires very simple handicraft that is at once repetitive and non-repetitive. I stay away from complicated technology and I have no secrets, so this is actually something that anyone can do. Hence I chose the tag ‘Weaving’ which requires neither strenuous physical activity nor unique skill. All that is required is a pair of hands and minimal effort.”

Born in Dubai, UAE (1951) where he lives and works, Hassan Sharif received his Diploma in Fine Arts and Design from the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. A founder and member of the Emirates Fine Art Society, he started his career as a cartoonist publishing hundreds of caricatures in local newspapers and magazines during the 1970’s. Sharif, whose oeuvre has been the object of the monograph Hassan Sharif Works 1973-2011, has recently shown his work in the solos “Hassan Sharif Experiments & Objects 1979-2011”, Qasr Al Hosn, Cultural Quarter Hall, Abu Dhabi (2011) and “Press Conference”, 1x1 Contemporary, Dubai (2009). Since 1974 he has participated extensively in collective exhibitions and biennials in the UAE and abroad including “Interventions”, Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (2010); ADACH Platform for Visual Arts, La Biennale di Venezia, 53rd International Art Exhibition (2009); “Performance Art of the 1980s. A Comparison”,Tina b. The Prague Contemporary Art Festival (2009); “Across the Gulf”, ARC Biennial, Brisbane (2009); “5 UAE”, Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen (2002); The 7th Havana Biennial (2000); The Cairo International Biennial (1988; 1998); “UAE Contemporary Art”, Institute of Arab World, Paris (1998). His works have been widely collected by international museums and institutions as well as numerous private collectors.

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Detail,

Jessica Mein

In Jessica Mein’s work, coherence, efficiency and ideas of linearity become interrupted by the faultiness of the handmade. The imaginary is explored in the manipulation and restructuring of material in order to reframe and expand perception. She explores the materiality of paper as a physical object as well as a malleable record of the real. Error, accident and imperfection are all implicit in these processes, which reference the patina of time, precarious structures, as well as limitations inherent to the medium. It is the abstraction of representation, together with a physical handling of images that is at the core of Mein’s practice.

Jessica was born in São Paulo (1975) and currently lives and works between New York, São Paulo and Dubai. Among her most recent exhibitions are the solo shows at The Pavilion Downtown Dubai (2012), “Verso Reverso”, Simon Preston Gallery, New York, USA (2011); “Cegueira”, Gallery Pfeister, Denmark (2010); “Feldman Gallery Project Room”, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, USA (2009); “Natureza Morta”, Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago, USA (2009); Simon Preston Gallery (with Carlos Bevilacqua), New York, NY, USA (2008). She recently participated in group exhibitions at the Drawing Center and the Big Screen Project, New York, USA (2011); Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf, Germany (2011); El Museo del Barrio, New York, USA (2011). Her work is in collections such as Julia Stoschek Collection, Dusseldorf, Germany; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA.

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Joe Girandola

Invoking a hybrid fine art and folk aesthetic, Joe Girandola uses duct tape as a kind of modern American oil paint, playfully re-working the tradition of narrative painting. Originally having trained as a stone sculptor, Girandola found irony in carving timeless objects out of an already timeless material like marble. Eventually appropriating duct tape, Girandola would go on to depict not only horses but architectural icons like the Roman Colosseum, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Stonehenge and other “wonders of the world” (including upcoming work of the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China), he also depicts 1950s-style Los Angeles diners that have since been destroyed, unable to maintain their presence in a world that is rapidly building cities on top of cities. His use of this relatively new material normally reserved as a “quick fix” for broken objects echoes ideas of cultural rise and fall inherent in his imagery.

Joe Girandola (1970) received his Master of Fine Arts, Sculpture from the University of Georgia, Athens, USA. After receiving an Artist Residency Fellowship at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, and completing a residency at the Santa Fe Art Institute (2002), his work was included in the widely reviewed exhibition, “Daily Terrors; Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, Adrian Piper, Monika Bravo, Joe Girandola, and others”. He is currently the Director of the MFA Program in Studio Art at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, His work was recently featured in the Palm Beach International Sculpture Biennale (2006) and awarded the People’s Choice Award. Among his recent solo shows, “STICKY, New works by Joe Girandola”, R3 Gallery, San Diego (2006-7); “Horse Sense” and “Perso/ Trovo”, University of the Arts, Philadelphia (2009 and 2010); “Gravity”, Arnot Art Museum, NY(2011) and an upcoming exhibition at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts (2012). His work is included in the Drawing Center’s (New York) Viewing Program and Image registry and public commissions are included in the collections of Robert Duncan, Steven Bloch, University of Georgia, Pepperdine University, Bonnie and Bryan Leyden, and Oakley, Inc. 094

097 098 Detail Layla Juma

Layla Juma first tests herself through the painting process: her works present a mixture of the finished and the unfinished, a meeting point, and yet without contamination, between different steps in artistic production. This very same dichotomy is also nominally expressed in Layla’s sculptural pieces and her digital drawings Twins (2007), Combination (2007) and Form and Space (2005), all of them referring to a confrontation or to a reversed perspective. Concepts of doubles, mixtures, binary relationships are solved in constantly evoloving ways, following visual dynamics which are absolutely not prefixed. These works represent a far more futuristic approach, even though they reveal her ideal filiations from the masters more than her earlier practice. “Committing to customs and traditions is the characteristic through which I seek contact with matter and space”, says Juma.

Her most recent works venture in a further new direction: the recurrence of geometrical forms still remains a characteristic of her research, here translated into a three-dimensional production, projects for objects, sculptures, monuments that emerge from the linearity of the generating traits. Broken lines, unclosed, interrupted, resumed forms inserted in each other, this is the language and the dialogue that Layla Juma silently leads, almost testifying to the fragmentation of human experience, the determinism of the intersection of the experiences and the true interest for their outcome.

Layla Juma was born in Sharjah, UAE (1977) where she lives and works. Besides participating in numerous local and international group shows (Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, UAE; Luzern, Switzerland; Saragossa, Spain; Kuwait; Saudi Arabia; Azerbaijan), her work has been exhibited within the 2nd Singapore Biennial (2008) and the 10th Cairo International Biennial (2006). Her work features in collections including JP Morgan Chase Collection and Towada City, Japan. Since 2009 she has been the chairman of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, which she joined as an active member in 2002.

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Water Sculptures (Waves), , 2010, stainless steel, 49 x 165 x 165 cm , © The Flying House

Water Sculptures (Splash), , 2010, stainless steel, 75 x 150 x 150 cm , © The Flying House

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Lujin Yoon

Armagan Esref is a blind painter, and has been blind from birth. He has never been able to see or understand colours as sighted people do. He has never been able to see the magic light at sunset and yet he has the ability to recreate light on canvas. Stubborn persistence mixed with a unique genius has given Esref the voice to express himself and ‘eyes to see with’. Esref has broken the boundaries of fixed ideas and reached his potential in a field that convention dictates him unable to.

It is within this context that Lujin Yoon explores in his work, his practice being based on human potentiality and the fixed ideas people are brought up to believe in. His research spreads between the individual potentiality of freedom to make decisions and the conventionality of society that in general can’t use and feel this potentiality. Society and culture’s instructions through both formal and informal education become set parameters around a person’s natural perceptions, become rules. It is these rules, which Lujin Yoon seeks to question within his practice. His studio research is centered on the ability of human beings to see things as they can be, not necessarily as how they have been instructed to see them by their education and environment.

Lujin Yoon was born in Seoul, Korea (1983) and while still in high school moved to New Zealand. After completing secondary school he entered the Whitecliffe College of Art and Design BFA where he was fascinated by the contextual issues surrounding contemporary art, and as such his work is both highly conceptual and aesthetic. Having completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts, he is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, USA. His work has been exhibited within the collective shows “Locals Only: A Few Good Men”, President’s Office Gallery, Philadelphia, USA (2011); The 29th Annual Exhibition of Emirates Fine Arts Society, Dubai, UAE (2011); “Blend” (2008) and “904kg” (2007), both at Randolph Street Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand.

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Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim

Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim forges experimental paths that lead him back to the origins of the creative act, to a direct contact with nature, to a recovery of shapes, techniques and materials that appear to be dictated by a profound archaeological knowledge. Since the early 90s, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim has created objects that authentically seem to be the expression of a vernacular society and cultural archetypes able to speak directly and universally. Hashed leaves, clay, paper and glue are the materials used to realise the artwork, a raw material characterised by lightness and versatility that enables the artist to obtain multiple forms, the balance is the result of a progressive definition. If the principle of sculpture –at least in its classical meaning– is “deprivation”, the works of Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim are additional, they grow “from the earth”.

The relation with the territory is another constant factor in Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim’s work, creating a dialogue with the natural context of the Khorfakan region, an arid one which does not grant much, unless to poetry. “Art is motion”, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim uses these words to synthesize the contents of his work referring to nature’s perpetual cycle, to the unstoppable motion of time, to the perennial research of the artist.

Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim was born in Khorfakan, UAE (1962) where he lives and works. A member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society since 1987, he founded the Art Atelier in the Khorfakan Art Center (1997) and is currently associated to The Flying House, Dubai. Among his exhibitions are the solo shows “Kazantour”, Khorfakan Cultural Center, UAE (2009); Sharjah International Art Biennial, UAE (1997); Cultural Center, Sharjah, UAE (1991) and Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi (1991). Besides his participations in several local and international group shows, his work has been exhibited within the Dhaka Biennial (1993, 2002); the Institute of Arab World, Paris (1998); the Cairo International Biennial (1998); the Havana Biennial (2000); the Kunst Museum, Bonn (2005); the Venice Biennale (2009). His work is in collections including Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; Sharjah Art Museum and Barjeel Foundation, Sharjah, UAE.

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Nelly Massera

“What is the life of mankind like today, caught as we are between two time scopes? On the one hand, our traditions, our cultures, our languages, and on the other hand our always-speeding society in a constant state of change.

I try to question the connecting ways between these two scopes of our identities. My work is infused with mythologies and fables, with the worlds of dreams, night and beliefs, and with the question of transmission. It often tackles in-between, transitory situations in the life of a living being.

I observe real life and I pick up visual and sound materials. I trigger off encounters with inhabitants, animals, and I film them. I film places too. Sometimes I stage them. I collect objects and pictures. I am interested in the documentary film format.

I use a variety of media such as videos, pictures, drawings or objects. I handle them, I transform them, I re-compose them. I create a gap from reality, and from this “other” image of real things, we catch a glimpse of otherness.

These transformed pictures, sounds and texts are combined to form installations, which aim to establish new links and a personal relationship with us, as we realise how we ourselves are caught in the tension of what they question. It is from this triangle between the object, the tension it explores and the eye of the spectator that confrontation and dialogue arise, which relocates us in the flux of actual life, now and here.”

Nelly Massera (France, 1974) studied visual arts, history of art and philosophy of art in universities and schools of art in Strasbourg, Southampton and Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. She is regularly invited for artist residency programmes and exhibitions in France, England, Poland, Latvia, India and Quebec. She collaborates with the theatre and designs video projections that interact with the acting on stage and sustain the narration. She was joint curator of several exhibitions in “rurban” areas, involving English and French artists.

She conducts workshops in schools of art, at schools and in prison. She contributed to the Digital Art Conservation project run by the ZKM Centre for art and media in Karlsruhe, Germany.

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Cyclical Ghosts, , 2011, video installation, , video still, 150

IMPRINT

Exhibition Title / MinD - Dubai Contemporary Curator / Mohammed Kazem Venue / DUCTAC, Gallery of Light, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai, UAE Period / 14 March - 14 April 2012 Organiser / DUCTAC, Dubai, UAE Project Manager / Colette Mol Support / The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, USA; Emax Electronics, UAE; CMS Printing Press, Ras Al Khor, Dubai, UAE; North Coast Medical, USA Technical / Craig Burgess, Phillip Fortaleza, Anthony Manalo Installation / Alvin Paniterce, Arif Uddin, Chandra Bose Construction / Bin Ayaf General Trading LLC

Catalogue Editors / Cristiana de Marchi, Mohammed Kazem Editing / Colette Mol, DUCTAC (English) / Hassan Sharif, Mohammed Kazem (Arabic) Translation / Samer Abou Hawache Copyediting / Colette Mol, Emma Haggerty, DUCTAC (English) / Samer Abou Hawache (Arabic) Graphic design / Shahid Aboobacker Cover design / Lujin Yoon Design reviewed by / Shaikha Alhattawi Paper / Natural Evolution White 120, 145, 280gsm, Art Matte 150gsm Published by / DUCTAC, Dubai, UAE Printed in Dubai, UAE by / CMS Printing Press Year of publication / 2012. First edition

All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Flap cover, English / Arabic edition ISBN 978-9948-16-501-9

Notes Cover image © Jessica Mein (Untitled (Blackout), 2012, ink on paper) Images on pages 1, 4, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17-18, 25-26, 36, 37, 39-40, 61, 72, 73, 117, 132, 155-156 © Mohammed Kazem Images on pages 20, 24, 33-34, 48 © Corrina Celeste Mehiel Images on pages 30, 31 © Cristiana de Marchi Images on pages 75, 76, 78, 135, 136, 137, 138 © The Flying House Image on pages 151-152 © JBdorner Images on pages 115, 116 © Towada City, Japan The texts on pages 35, 59, 71, 101, 131 have been authored by Cristiana de Marchi Captions include title, year of production, media, size Unless otherwise stated, works and images are courtesy of the artist

Copyright / © 2012 DUCTAC, Dubai, UAE © For the texts, the authors. For the images, the photographers

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